Chapter 47 (Patreon)

92 AC. Astapor

The fires that had broken out across Astapor during the assault were not fully put out until the second day after the city's fall. The Unsullied, under Ser Duncan's command, methodically swept quarter after quarter, dragging out from cellars and hidden passages the last of the slavers who had tried to wait out the slaughter in the hope it would pass them by. The freed slaves crowded the streets, uncertain what to do with themselves - for too long other men had decided their fate for them, and now that freedom was theirs, they scarcely knew how to choose their own path.

Corlys ordered the confiscation of every item of value in the mansions, palaces, and pyramids of the Good Masters - gold, jewels, costly fabrics, rare spices, and everything else that could be sold or put to use. One-fifth of the plunder he ordered distributed among the former slaves, and along with it, he offered them passage with the Velaryons to Driftmark - once the Stepstones had been taken, the freed people of Astapor were to become the first settlers upon those islands.

Ser Duncan, who had taken overall charge of restoring order in the city, reported daily on the state of things. Some of the freed slaves, particularly those who had spent most of their lives in bondage, still feared to leave their old dwellings, even knowing the overseers were no more. Others, by contrast, crowded at the gates of the captured pyramids, demanding their share of their former masters' wealth, and quarrels sometimes broke out among them that the Unsullied had to step in and settle.

Corlys and Daeron sat in one of the captured mansions, discussing what came next. On the table before them lay a map of Slaver's Bay, marked all over with notations.

"The one problem that has always stood between our family and settling the Stepstones was that we lacked the manpower and population to fill the archipelago once it was taken," Corlys said, studying the map. "Land without people is worth nothing. Now we have a potential population, and no small one at that."

Daeron leaned back in his chair, weighing his brother's words.

"And what happens if the former slaves want to stay in Astapor, or move on to other cities of Essos?" he asked. "Not all of them will want to sail off to a Westeros they've never seen."

"In truth, these people have no other sensible choice," Corlys answered. "If they stay here, this city will sooner or later be taken by someone, once word spreads that Astapor has fallen and there is no one left to defend it. And then they will most likely be put to the sword as an example to every other city on the bay, so that no other slaves ever dream of rising up. But if they place their trust in House Velaryon, they will have a home of their own and real protection - no one will ever turn them back into slaves again. Besides, some of the freed of Meereen and Yunkai we can send on to our colony in Sothoryos, where hands are lacking as well."

"If the people agree to it of their own free will," Daeron observed, "then it will be a true blessing for them, and not merely another change of master."

"They are not fools," Corlys said firmly. "They understand perfectly well that since we do not mean to hold the whole of Slaver's Bay under our hand forever, they could not defend themselves on their own, nor find a safe home anywhere else in Essos. The customs here toward slaves are too savage for that."

Daeron drummed his fingers on the table, turning over everything he had heard.

"And what do we do about the Unsullied themselves, the ones who choose to stay on as soldiers?" he asked. "Thirty thousand warriors is an enormous force, brother, but they still need to be housed somewhere, fed, and paid. The Stepstones alone won't be able to support an army that size, especially at first, before the islands start turning a profit."

"Some will remain as garrisons on the Stepstones themselves, guarding the new settlements," Corlys answered, "and some we'll station at High Tide, to strengthen our own defenses."

"You've already thought all of this through," Daeron remarked with a faint smile.

"I've been thinking on it for years," Corlys answered seriously. "Ever since the first time I came to this city, and understood that sooner or later I would come back - not as a guest this time, but as the one who would put an end to all of it."

Daeron looked at his brother with mild surprise - Corlys was not usually one to share such admissions, even with those closest to him.

"You've never told me that so plainly before. You always keep your own counsel and lay your plans quietly," he observed.

"There was no occasion for it before," Corlys said, shrugging. "Now the occasion presented itself."

The next day, in one of the city's captured pyramids, Corlys, Daeron, and several chosen representatives of the freed people gathered for an important conversation. Corlys swept his gaze over those assembled - weary, but no longer so frightened as they had been on the first day after their liberation - and spoke first.

"In a few days I set out for Meereen," he said, "and I need to know what the people of Astapor have decided. Your fate now lies in your own hands, and I want to hear your choice from your own mouths, not decide it for you."

A man of middle years, standing a little ahead of the other representatives and plainly held in no small respect among them, stepped forward and bowed.

"My lord," he said, "the people of Astapor discussed this among themselves through the whole of last night, and most of us have decided to follow you. We are grateful to you for the chance to find a true home, where we will never again have to fear becoming anyone's property."

"I am glad to hear it," Corlys answered, genuine satisfaction in his voice. "My brother Veylor's fleet will reach Astapor before long, and all of you will be carried to the Stepstones as soon as the islands are in our hands. Until then, I will leave two thousand Unsullied in the city, along with men I trust, for your protection. I myself am pressing on, to Meereen."

A woman standing somewhat apart from the other representatives - one who, by all appearances, had held some standing among the slaves, since she had been allowed to attend such a gathering - spoke up hesitantly.

"My lord," she said, inclining her head slightly, "and what will become of those among us who are too old, or too frail, for hard labor on the new lands? We too wish to go with you, but we fear becoming a burden there."

Corlys looked at her without any trace of irritation, only a touch of sympathy in his eyes.

"No one will go without shelter or bread merely for their age or their poor health," he answered firmly. "There will be work on the Stepstones for everyone - for some, labor in the fields, for others, a craft, and for those no longer able to work at all, a place by the hearth, and no one will begrudge them their bread. We did not free you from slavery only to condemn you to hunger in your new life."

The woman, plainly reassured by his words, bowed in sincere gratitude and withdrew back among the other representatives. The man and those standing beside him thanked Corlys once more for the mercy he had shown and left the hall, leaving the brothers alone. As soon as the door closed behind them, Corlys turned to Daeron.

"See that our people begin preparing for tomorrow's departure," he said. "And have them take a count of the whole population as well - exact numbers, ages, and what trades they know. That information will serve us well when the time comes to settle the people across the different islands of the Stepstones."

"I'll see to it," Daeron said with a short nod.

"One more thing," Corlys added, unrolling a new map on the table, this one showing the whole of Slaver's Bay. "We'll divide the Unsullied between us. I'll take thirteen thousand with me and make for Meereen. You will take command of part of our forces and fifteen thousand Unsullied, and march on Yunkai."

He traced a finger along the map, marking a point on the coast some distance from the city.

"You'll land here, some five kilometers from the city, and strike Yunkai late at night, when they least expect it."

Daeron studied the map closely, weighing the plan his brother had laid out.

"The landing and the approach to the city shouldn't pose any trouble," he said after a short silence. "But how are we meant to take the city walls themselves by a single stroke? Yunkai surely has a garrison strong enough, and surprise alone won't substitute for a breach in the walls."

At that moment there came a knock at the door, and Ser Adam entered the hall.

"My lord," he said, addressing Corlys, "Aguilar wishes to see you."

"Send him in," Corlys answered, and turning to his brother, added with a faint smile, "Aguilar is just the man to help you solve that problem."

The head of House Velaryon's guild of assassins entered the hall with a confident, silent stride and bowed to both brothers.

"My lords," he said, straightening.

"And how exactly is Aguilar meant to help me with this?" Daeron asked, glancing from the assassin to his brother.

"Our people have been in Yunkai for some time now," Corlys explained. "On the night of the assault, they will help open the main gates, after first putting the guards to sleep. I trust," he added, turning to his brother, "that once the gates stand open, you'll have no trouble at all taking the city itself."

"I won't fail you, brother," Daeron answered firmly. "But it would serve us far better to know more of the city's defenses before we lead the men into the assault."

"That won't be a problem at all," Aguilar put in, and stepping up to the table, unrolled another scroll over the map - a detailed layout of the city, marking the patrol routes of the city watch and the positions of the Good Masters' palaces. "My people have been putting this together for months now, my lord, and it's accurate enough to be trusted."

Daeron bent over the layout, studying every marked detail with care.

"This greatly improves our chances of taking the city with the fewest losses possible," he said, not lifting his eyes from the scroll.

"Aguilar will accompany you personally," Corlys said, "to send word to our people in the city the moment it's time to begin the assault."

Having settled the last details of the plan, Corlys sent both of them off to prepare for the coming campaign.

The next day, the army began loading onto the ships, making ready to sail for Meereen and Yunkai. Corlys, true to his word, left two thousand Unsullied behind in Astapor, along with several of his own men, well versed in matters of logistics and the supplying of cities. Another twenty warships remained to patrol the city's coastal waters, in case any of the neighboring cities should decide to try their luck while the main strength of the Velaryons was away.

Just before parting ways, the brothers went over their plans one last time on the deck of the flagship.

"Remember," Corlys said, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder, "if something goes wrong and you see that the city cannot be taken in a single stroke, don't press on stubbornly for its own sake. Fall back, regroup, and try again, but never spend men merely for pride's sake. We can always come back later with greater strength."

"I remember that as well as you do," Daeron answered with a faint smile. "You've drummed it into my head enough over the years that needless losses are the mark of a poor commander."

"Just look after yourself," Corlys added, more gently now. "Mother won't forgive me if I don't bring you home."

"You'll be fine," Daeron said with a grin. "And don't worry about me - Aguilar and his people know their work. Besides, I have reasons enough of my own to come home whole and in one piece - don't forget, I have a wife and children waiting for me there, whom I haven't seen in over a month."

"All the more reason not to take needless risks," Corlys agreed. "Thea won't thank you if you come home with a new scar that could have been avoided."

Daeron laughed and clapped his brother on the shoulder.

"Until we meet again, then, brother," he said. "Try not to linger in Meereen any longer than you have to - Viserra is surely just as anxious, waiting for word from you."

"I won't linger," Corlys promised his brother.

The brothers embraced briefly, and Daeron, with a parting nod, went down to his own ship, making ready for the coming division of the fleets. Corlys stood a while longer on the deck, watching his brother's ships draw away toward the coast, before giving his captain the order to set a course north.

The ships set sail and almost at once split into two separate fleets. Corlys's force took a course further north, rounding the island of Jhos, while Daeron and his portion of the army made for Yunkai along the coast, the city lying roughly midway between Astapor and Meereen.

Daeron reached Yunkai after three days at sea and began landing his troops at the agreed spot near the city, exactly as he and his brother had planned beforehand. Before nightfall, they would need to march the rest of the way to the walls themselves.

Aguilar, no sooner than he had set foot ashore, sent a coded message by messenger hawk to his people in the city, in case the message itself should be intercepted along the way, letting them know it was time to prepare for the assault.

While the army formed up for the march, one of the Unsullied captains assigned to Daeron personally by Corlys approached him with a question.

"My lord," he said, in broken but perfectly understandable Common Tongue, "what is to be done with defenders who surrender on their own, without waiting to fight? Kill them all without exception, or take them prisoner?"

Daeron thought it over briefly before answering.

"Those who lay down their arms willingly and offer no resistance - take prisoner," he said. "We are not animals, and there's no need to kill a man who has already admitted defeat. But those who go on fighting - put them down without mercy. Pass that along to the other commanders, so there's no confusion once the battle is underway."

The captain nodded shortly and went to pass the order on down the chain of command.

The army reached Yunkai deep in the night, remaining unseen thanks to the darkness and the patrol routes of the city watch, scouted out well in advance. It was decided to let the men rest two hours before the assault began, and in that time Aguilar managed to send one more message, this one giving the exact time the operation was to begin.

The assassins, upon receiving word, set to work at once. They sent one of their own to the city guardsmen - a man who, over years of service, had worked his way up to a post in the watch at the main gate. The guardsmen were surprised to see him show up at an hour he was not due, but he had his explanation ready - he complained of an unfaithful lover and said he'd decided to clear his head and have a drink, producing what looked like a fairly costly bottle of wine as he spoke. The drink had been laced beforehand with a potion strong enough to put a grown man to sleep. The assassin himself had taken the antidote in advance, but still took several pulls from the bottle alongside the guardsmen, so as not to arouse suspicion.

An hour later, every guardsman at the gate was asleep, and the assassins threw the gates open unhindered, giving the agreed signal to the Velaryon army waiting nearby.

Daeron, watching the gates from a distance alongside Aguilar, was the first to catch the signal.

"Now," he said shortly, raising a hand.

"The gates are open, my lord," Aguilar confirmed, a spyglass in his hands. "Inside, the city doesn't even suspect what's happening at its own walls."

Daeron nodded, and drawing his sword, led the army forward at a swift but silent pace, doing everything he could to keep the element of surprise as long as possible.

Had Yunkai known beforehand of Astapor's fall, the city would surely have been on guard and ready to defend itself. But Corlys had given orders to hold every outbound ship in port, and to step up patrols along the roads, so that word of what had happened could not spread through the region ahead of time. Once the main forces had sailed from Astapor, no one could have reached Yunkai or Meereen faster than the Velaryons themselves to give warning of the danger.

The army poured into a city utterly unprepared for the attack. The Unsullied defending the city walls were, so far as possible, taken prisoner rather than killed, while the other defenders were shown no mercy - though as before in Astapor, no woman or child in Yunkai was touched. Whatever else may be said of them, the Unsullied - unlike so many warriors of Westeros - never resort to plunder or violence against women, and that discipline showed itself with particular clarity during the clearing of the quarters and mansions of the Good Masters.

The soldiers of House Velaryon likewise engaged in no plundering, and did not so much as look twice at a woman during the assault. They had learned well that violence against a woman went unforgiven on Velaryon lands, and war was no exception to that rule. It was a lesson well remembered back at Driftmark: the punishment for such a crime was severe - the guilty man was gelded, the wound then cauterized so he would not die of blood loss before his time, and he was then caged beneath the blazing sun, left to die slowly, whether from the shock of his wounds or from thirst and hunger. And should any man, gods forbid, dare commit such a crime against a child, he was impaled after his gelding. At first, many recoiled at the severity of such punishment, but in time, once the number of such crimes had fallen to almost nothing out of sheer terror of the reckoning, everyone came to see the plain benefit of so harsh an approach.

So it was that night too - the soldiers moved through the city paying no mind to any possible plunder, and by dawn Yunkai had fallen to the Velaryons for good. The conquerors rejoiced, and the slaves had their hated chains struck from them, each one told that from this day forward they were free, and would never again be subjected to such oppression.

Daeron, making his way through the captured city with Aguilar once the last pockets of resistance had been put down, stopped at the main square, where the first crowds of the freed were beginning to gather.

"Faster than I expected," he remarked, taking in the scene around him. "Your people did excellent work with the gates."

"We spent months preparing for this, my lord," Aguilar answered. "Though I confess, I didn't expect the taking of the city itself to go so smoothly. Your guardsmen and the Unsullied worked together as though they'd been fighting side by side for years, not days."

"A shared purpose brings men together faster than years of service ever could," Daeron said, watching as soldiers of two entirely different armies helped freed slaves to their feet together. "Now we need to send word to Corlys, and start preparing the city for the arrival of the fleet Veylor is sending, just as we agreed."

Corlys, owing to the much greater distance, had to spend about six days at sea. A long voyage lends itself to conversation, and one evening, when most of the crew had already turned in, Ser Adam found his lord standing at the bow of the ship, gazing out at the dark water.

His plan largely mirrored the one Daeron had used at Yunkai, but with one significant difference. Meereen proved far larger - it held nearly as many people as Astapor and Yunkai combined - and the city itself made a far more imposing impression by its sheer size alone. For that reason, Corlys needed to sow real panic and chaos within the city at the same moment as the assault from without, so the defenders would have no chance to mount anything resembling proper resistance.

In Meereen, the Velaryons had a far greater number of assassins and spies, who over the long months had worked their way into every corner of the city's life. The people of Meereen held a particular passion for their fighting pits, where slaves were forced to fight one another to the death for the crowd's amusement. On the night of the assault, Corlys gave the assassins orders to free the slaves held in these pits and to stir up a great disturbance inside the city at the same moment as the assault on the walls began, while the rest of his people were to see to the gates, just as had been done at Yunkai.

Ser Adam, having learned of this plan aboard ship, voiced some doubt over dinner in the captain's cabin.

"My lord," he said then, "isn't it a risk to rely on fighters from the pits? They're used to fighting one another, not as a single company, and they're likely to have no weapons to hand at the moment it matters most."

"My people will provide them the weapons," Corlys answered. "And as for acting together - we don't need the discipline of the Unsullied from them. It's enough that they throw the city into as much chaos as possible, and force the Good Masters to scatter their strength instead of massing the whole garrison at the gates. The fury of men made to kill one another for a crowd's amusement, year after year, is a fearsome weapon in its own right, if pointed the right way."

By that point, Corlys had already received word from Daeron of the city's fall - the brothers had three enchanted books with blank pages, in which whatever one wrote appeared at once in the others, however great the distance separating them. His brother had not let him down, and now it fell to Corlys himself to finish their campaign and bring the army home in triumph.

The army landed not far from Meereen, and under cover of moonlight, the men made their way to the city by night, moving as quietly as they could. Corlys sent a message to the assassins by messenger falcon and began forming up the army for the coming assault. An hour later, the city gates swung open, and the Velaryons poured inside.

Corlys himself led his men into the attack. Ser Adam and Ser Duncan stayed at their lord's side without fail, shouting orders to the guardsmen to cover Corlys from every side. Ares fought at his side as well - the panther threw himself at anyone who tried to come too close to his master. Between the three of them - Ares, Duncan, and Adam - Corlys was left with not a single opponent he had to deal with on his own.

In the heart of the city, meanwhile, fires broke out - as soon as the freed gladiators became certain that the assassins Corlys had sent were truly helping them win their freedom, they fell upon their own tormentors with a savage fury the moment they reached the city armory. One of the assassins overseeing this part of the plan later told Corlys he had never seen such fury before - fighters who had been made to kill one another for years for the crowd's amusement now turned all their pent-up hatred upon those who had staged those spectacles, and spared not a single overseer of the fighting pits who crossed their path.

It was true chaos, lasting even past dawn. The city proved enormous - a full twenty pyramids rose above its quarters, and the largest of them, standing at the very center, was defended far better than the rest. Its owner's household guard, made up of sellswords, had managed to barricade themselves inside and held out longer than any of the city's other defenders, beating back one assault after another from the pyramid's upper tiers.

"They won't surrender - they simply have nothing left to lose," Ser Adam observed, watching yet another failed attempt to force the pyramid's lower gates. "We've backed these sellswords into a corner ourselves, and cut off any path of retreat. When there's nowhere left to run, even the most level-headed sellswords will fight with the desperation of the doomed, to the very last breath."

"Then we'll have to take their paymaster's life," Corlys answered evenly, and with a short whistle, sent Ares toward a narrow passage on the eastern side of the building, which, if the assassins' reports could be trusted, was guarded far more lightly than the main entrance.

Ser Duncan, hearing his lord's plan, stepped forward at once.

"Let me go first, my lord," he said. "A narrow passage is just the place for a man my size to clear the way, before you go in yourself."

"Very well," Corlys agreed after a moment's thought. "But don't take needless chances."

Duncan nodded and slipped first into the dark passage, its walls barely wide enough for his massive shoulders. A few minutes later, sounds of a brief, fierce struggle came from within, then silence fell, and Duncan's voice called the others in - the way was clear.

Corlys, Ser Adam, the guardsmen, and Ares followed after, climbing the narrow stairway to the pyramid's upper tiers, where the last of the defenders had taken refuge along with the building's own master. The sellswords, caught off guard by the enemy's sudden appearance from a direction they had not expected, had no time to mount any proper resistance. The struggle on the upper terrace was brief but bloody - several of Corlys's guardsmen were wounded, though none, thankfully, mortally.

The pyramid's master himself, a man in rich robes, was found cowering behind a massive throne in the main hall of the upper tier. He tried to buy his life just as the prisoner Ser Duncan had brought in earlier had tried, but Corlys, remembering the fighting pits and how many men this man had sent to their deaths for his own amusement, did not waste words on him, and ended his rule with his own hand.

Clearing every last pyramid took no small amount of time and effort. Some of the city's rulers even managed to board ships and flee the harbor the moment they were certain Meereen was lost to them for good - but the Velaryon fleet intercepted every fleeing vessel out on the open sea, and not one of them escaped.

One of the captured ships was brought back to port toward evening, and Ser Duncan personally brought before Corlys, who still stood at the foot of the central pyramid, a captive nobleman - a stout man of middle years in what had once been a splendid tokar, now badly rumpled.

"My lord," Duncan said, shoving the prisoner forward, "this one tried to buy off our men with gold, right there on the ship's deck. Offered twice what you paid for the Unsullied at Astapor, just to be let go."

The prisoner, trembling, tried to speak, but Corlys only looked at him coldly.

"I have no interest in your gold," he said in Ghiscari. "It already belongs to me now, along with everything else this city held."

"Mercy," the nobleman begged, dropping to his knees in the middle of the blood-trodden square. "I never dirtied my own hands, I only owned the pits - it was the slaves themselves who fought there..."

"And it was you who made them fight to the death for your guests' amusement," Corlys cut him off. "That is enough."

He gave Ser Duncan a short nod, and the man led the prisoner away, to join the rest of the captured Good Masters awaiting their fate under the Unsullied's guard.

Daeron, still in Yunkai, received word from his elder brother that same evening through the enchanted book, and answered at once. Corlys, opening his half of the book by torchlight, read the lines that had appeared on the page, blank until then: his brother reported that the city was fully under control, that losses among their men had proven surprisingly light, and that the first columns of freed slaves were already preparing to set out for the coast, where Veylor's ships and the captured vessels would be waiting for them. Corlys let his eyes linger a moment on the written page before taking up his pen to set down his own reply. He gave his brother a brief account of how matters stood in Meereen - the taking of the city, the capture of most of the Good Masters, and the coming clearing of the last pockets of resistance in the central pyramid. At the end, he added that he expected to have the remaining business settled within two days, three at the most, after which he would set out to join his brother's forces.

Pen already set down, Corlys sat a while longer, gazing into the torch's flame, turning over everything that had happened these past weeks. Three cities, thirty thousand Unsullied, tens of thousands of freed slaves - and all of it in under a month.

He thought that the Stepstones, for whose sake this whole campaign had first been undertaken, had now turned out to be merely the first step in a far greater undertaking, and that there was still no small amount of trouble ahead of him yet with the magisters of Essos.

By evening, the city had fallen to the conquerors for good. Corlys climbed to the terrace of the central pyramid, towering over the main square, just after personally finishing off the last of that building's masters. He stood looking out over the city he had won, smoke still rising from fires already put out, then turned to the captain of a company of Unsullied who, upon gaining his freedom, had chosen for himself the name given to him at birth - Cleon.

"See that every slave in the city is freed, and that it's properly explained to all of them," Corlys said, addressing him. "And see to what fires remain as well - we've no use for flames destroying what we've just won."

Cleon bowed shortly to his new lord and went off to carry out his orders. Ser Adam and Ser Duncan came up to Corlys in the meantime.

"What now, my lord?" Ser Adam asked, wiping the blood from his blade.

Corlys turned back toward the city once more, absently stroking Ares's fur, the panther's muzzle still smeared with the blood of others.

"First we bring the city fully to heel," he answered after a moment's thought. "Then we join with my brother's forces, and at last, we go home."

The next morning, Cleon was brought before Corlys, along with several other former gladiators, who now led hastily assembled companies of freed slaves keeping order in different quarters of the city.

Arthur, a tall, broad-shouldered man with numerous scars across his arms - marks of long years spent in the fighting pits - stopped before Corlys and bowed his head.

"My lord," he said in the Common Tongue, with the lilting accent characteristic of Dornishmen, "the fires are out, and there's no more armed resistance left in the streets. We found a few more Good Masters hiding in the cellars of their own pyramids, and took them into custody, as you ordered."

Corlys raised an eyebrow in surprise, hearing a familiar tongue in the last place he expected to hear it.

"You're from Westeros?" he asked, slipping into the Common Tongue himself.

"I am, my lord," Arthur answered, inclining his head slightly.

"Dorne, by any chance?" Corlys went on, looking at him more closely now.

"Did the accent give me away?" Arthur said with a grin, allowing himself something like a smile for the first time in the conversation.

"I'd know a Dornish accent anywhere," Corlys answered. "What part of Dorne are you from?"

"My name is Arthur Sand," he said after a brief pause. "I'm Lord Dayne's bastard."

Corlys paused a moment, not troubling to hide his surprise.

"How does Lord Dayne's son come to be here, in Meereen, a slave in the fighting pits, of all things?" he asked.

Arthur's face darkened, and the shadow of an old, long-unhealed pain showed plainly upon it.

"Perhaps I'll tell you that story one day, my lord," he said quietly. "But not now. I'm not ready to speak of it yet."

"Good work," Corlys answered, deciding not to press him, and looked the former gladiator over. "How many men are under your command now?"

"About three hundred, my lord," Arthur answered. "Mostly former pit fighters, like myself, but there are a few dozen ordinary townsfolk among them too, who came forward on their own to help keep order while the city recovers from what's happened."

"Keep up the good work," Corlys said approvingly. "How do you feel now that it's all over?"

Arthur thought for a moment, as though he could not quite put words to what he felt himself.

"Strange, my lord," he admitted honestly. "Every year since I became a slave, I fought for the right to see the next day. And now, for the first time, I don't have to fight anyone just to stay alive, and it leaves a hollow feeling I'm not used to, like something's missing."

"That will pass," Corlys said, understanding in his voice. "Give yourself time. Freedom feels like a strange, unfamiliar thing to a lot of people at first, especially to those who've known nothing but being forced for years on end. But in time, you'll remember what it is to live for yourself, and not for someone else's amusement."

"I hope you're right, my lord," Arthur answered, and with a short bow, returned to his duties alongside the other former gladiators.

Toward midday, Ser Adam brought Corlys a list of the captured Good Masters, taken in different parts of the city - some three hundred people in all, including those intercepted at the port trying to flee.

"What are your orders for them, my lord?" he asked. "In Astapor and Yunkai, most of the slavers were cut down in the streets during the assault itself, but here in Meereen, a good many of them ended up in our hands alive."

Corlys thought it over, looking through the list of names and titles.

"Let the people of Meereen judge the prisoners themselves - those who suffered most under their rule. I won't sit as sole judge and executioner where I can let people decide their former masters' fate for themselves. That will be fairer than any sentence I could hand down on my own."

Ser Adam nodded and withdrew to see to housing the prisoners under close guard until the people themselves could take up their fate. Corlys, left alone, ran his eyes over the list of names once more before setting it aside and turning to the next matters awaiting him - and after the fall of so great a city, there was no shortage of them.